Officials in Utah fear that a group of anti-immigration activists may have taken matters into their own hands.
An anonymous group of “concerned citizens” sent a letter this week to newspapers in Utah containing more than 1,300 names of people it says are in the country illegally. It also enclosed a similar letter it had sent to federal and state officials in April.
“We are enclosing a list of individuals who we strongly believe are in this country illegally and should be immediately deported,” the April 4 letter reads.
Though the group says it is not violent, the letter includes sensitive information like Social Security numbers, phone numbers and even the due dates of pregnant women on the list, according to reports from multiple Utah news agencies who received the document. KSL Newsradio in Utah reports that nearly every name on the list is of Spanish origin.
Republican Gov. Gary Herbert wants to know how the information was obtained, and he announced on Twitter that he’d directed Utah authorities to see if the list had been leaked illegally by a state employee.
For its part, the group claims the list is “the result of hard work by a large force of tax-paying citizens over the course of many months who live throughout the state of Utah.”
The list has not yet been verified, but at least one person on the list has said publicly that he is an illegal immigrant.
“We have a reason why we came here to live, to at least have something better,” Israel Perez told KSL on Tuesday. “But people trying to kick us out, we be like dogs running around and putting us in a cage and sending us back somewhere we don’t want.” Perez said his parents brought him to the United States when he was 10 years old.
In the wake of Arizona’s tough new immigration law, the list has sparked fear among immigrants in Utah and raised questions about whether the already heated debate over immigration has taken a vigilante turn.
“My phone has been ringing nonstop since this morning with people finding out they’re on the list,” Tony Yapias, former director of the Utah Office of Hispanic Affairs, told The Associated Press. “They’re feeling terrorized. They’re very scared.”
The letter’s language — which seemed to suggest that members of the group had spent time tracking suspected illegal immigrants in their day-to-day lives — did not help.
“Our group observes these individuals in our neighborhoods, driving on our streets, working in our stores, attending our schools and entering our public welfare buildings,” the group wrote.
A promise that the letter’s authors would be “listening and watching” to make sure their fellow citizens turn in illegal immigrants didn’t sit well with some Utah lawmakers, either.
Democratic state Rep. Neil Hansen called the list makers cowards. “Here’s somebody accusing people of being illegals and yet they’re not willing to put their name on this,” he told ABC 4 Utah. “It almost seems [like] cowardice.”
Utah Minutemen Project has denied any involvement in the list, but co-chairman Eli Cawley said he supports the group.
“It’s probably against some privacy laws,” Cawley told KSL. “But I think in the interest of preserving our civilization, preserving our society and protecting the people of the state of Utah, I think that’s a greater interest than protecting the privacy of some individuals.”
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Scumbag liberals. Always scamming ways to cheat the system while using quasi-innocents as pawns. Before it was the criminal blacks, now it’s the wetbacks. Non-criminals and citizens are the ones who are being harmed by them, but it’s all part of their hate America guilt appeasement by proxy plan that will, by the harm to millions of innocents, make these POS scum feel better about themselves.
It’s sad that 1) our gov’t Rebukicrats have been elected and reelected for decades by the american sheople allowing for the current state of affairs 2) the sheople now feel compelled to act upon their own errors by not addressing the problems but by bandaging the symptoms 3) that some how “love thy neighbor” only applies when it’s convenient.
I must say that without my family and those unemployment checks I would have been screwed. Not everyone has that privilege. Also, many of these illegals come from places that are subject to our dear NAFTA, which no one seems to want to address. They’ve been long living the pinch that we are only recently starting to experience.
I hope they catch he people who did this and put THEM in jail. 5 – 10 should be enough.
They should go after the illegal aliens and give the folks who did it a medal!
We’re sick and tired of illegals using our social services when Americans are sleeping under bridges and are homeless and can’t get help!!!!!